If you've ever harboured secret ambitions of becoming a palaeontologist or just watched Jurassic Park too many times, a new massive open online course (or MOOC) has opened for registration which might just be relevant to your interests.
Dino 101 will start at the beginning of September and will be led by Philip Currie who is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Dinosaur Paleobiology at the University of Alberta. The course has been developed in partnership with MOOC provider Coursera and will be free to students and enthusiasts around the world. "Dino 101 offers an engaging learning experience to anyone interested in palaeontology. We hope that this course will inspire the next generation of dinosaur researchers, and help excite the imagination of the general population," Faculty of Science Dean Jonathan Schaeffer told Wired.co.uk.
The course will be presented over 12 lessons -- which are delivered from museums, fossil-preparation labs and dig sites -- and requires no particular academic background. It will provide a comprehensive overview of non-avian dinosaurs, including topics such as anatomy, eating, locomotion, growth, environmental and behavioural adaptations, origins and extinction. Interactive learning methods will involve online gaming and will offer students the opportunity to explore a 3D fossil file and manipulate real scanned dinosaur bones.
The course is academically rigorous and will be open to University of Alberta students and students from other universities around the world, who will be able to gain the documentation they need in order to seek academic credit. Estimated workload for those hoping to complete the course for credit is around seven to ten hours a week. That slips to around three to five hours for those just doing the course for fun. "The course has met all the standards for accreditation at the University of Alberta, one of Canada's top five research universities. We paid particular attention to the online midterm and final exams to ensure a high-quality assessment of students and their learning outcomes," said Schaeffer.
The university suggests background reading for those interested, but says all that's required to take the course is "an internet connection and a sense of adventure".
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
